Perhaps I dive too deep into things, but I was curious about how the site experience of the Amazon Luxury Stores compared to that of a more established e-retailer, Saks Fifth Avenue. Granted, Saks has been in the luxury retail for literally over a century and have provided an e-commerce site since 2000. Amazon on the other hand has been around since 1995 and should have a corner on the best online practices.
The first thing I did was navigate to the Amazon Luxury Stores site. It took me a while to find it. The link to it is not visible as first glance on the Amazon homepage. I had to click through a lot of drop down menus to finally find it.
Interestingly enough, it is not linked to Amazon fashion, which was my first thought. Instead, it is located on the left side of the screen, under Stores. (Caveat, I would later realize that there is a link on the Clothing and fashion drop down menu as well.)
The entry page features holiday themed images and video. (Note the blurry image on the left.) One thing that I noticed is their attempt to set this aside as a more premium site, with fonts and layout differentiating it from other shopping pages. If nothing else, they have tried to use gold throughout, including in the separating lines.
In contrast Saks has a set of rotating images and boasts an early look at next seasons collection. They instead use more black and white, likely given their classic branding.
On to the individual product pages. I was able to find the exact same sweater on both sites. It happens to be the same price.
The Amazon page is a bit busier and centers price and its trademark returns/shipping reputation. They also have a note about the designer to educate the site visitor.
As a frame of reference this is the usual product page layout throughout Amazon Fashion.
Saks provides more product centered information about fit. While they also offer financing and free 3 to 5 day shipping, this is less prominent on the page.
One last thing that I find interesting is that the recommendations on the Amazon page are all around the specific designer, whereas the AI for Saks generated a list of sweaters that share similarities to this one.
That is the shopping experience. I think it would be nice to order the same product from both brands, and the designer himself, to compare the experience as a customer. But alas, I am not willing to invest $3000 into that experiment. But hopefully, this comparison provides some more insight into the branding strategy that Amazon is using to make their Luxury Stores more inviting to shoppers with more expensive tastes.
That is what I have, but let me know what else you’ve noticed.
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